Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Monday, March 02, 2009 7:18:50 AM
Toronto (March 2, 2009) -- On another website someone posed the question *If you could speak to your 20 year old self, what would you tell her about the future?* Now I have just turned 61, and I am supposed to be an Old Fogey and a Stick In The Mud, a Cautious Carrie and a Curmudgeon -- but I have to tell you, I was startled by the ennervating, rut-digging, totally boring advice these much younger people would have given themselves. It has been a lifetime since I was 20 years old (that was in 1968), but I can guarantee you that I would not have paid the slightest attention to a pinch-mouthed Future Me admonishing me to pay my bills, buy property and pay my mortgage, put all my money in savings and essentially put off living (save for marriage, children, and Buying Things) until everything was Paid in Full. Not that there is anybody like that on either side of my family, fortunately. We are more the Life Is Uncertain - Eat Dessert First type.
What I would tell my 20 year old self (who was focused almost exclusively on Star Trek, actually, and taking 24 units of classs at Bible College, working two part time jobs and living a very modified Vida Loca as she enjoyed her first experience being 800 miles away from her family) is quite different.
From my position in the future I would reassure her that she would have a very rich, full life and that she would achieve almost all the goals she had set for herself. You will, I would tell her, stand on all 7 continents, travel to 40 different countries and 42 states, make friends all over the world, ride motocross, live in California (and Idaho, Tennessee, Georgia, Buffalo and Canada), and go to England so many times that it will become as usual as taking the bus from Atlanta to Alabama. Life will change radically in the next few years and women will no longer be forced against their will to marry, have children and keep house -- so relax and stop dating impossible men; you will not have to settle for whatever comes along, and you will be much happier without any of these goofs. It will bcome acceptable and possible for women to enter male-dominated fields but you will have to fight your way in by merit and you will succeed.
You will, I would have told her, have to re-make your life four or five times, from the ground up, but you will succeed every time, and you will do so by trusting in God and following His directions. You will live in luxury and you will live in match boxes. You will hike down canyons in Australia, and you will walk miles to work. You will visit the 24 Hours of Le Mans 6 times (or more, the jury is still out on that) and in one year you will visit the Grand Prix of Montreal, the Grand Prix of Silverstone and the 24 Hours of Le Mans -- and then you will discover Petit Le Mans and life will change forever. You will meet influential people and you will become friends with ambassadors. But you will never be invited to a single home in Ontario, Canada, so dont waste your time trying to be friends with them. It is no fault in you. They are simply indifferent, unfriendly, insular people and there is no doing anything about it. Keep up your friendships in other countries.
There will be wonderful things and there will be terrible things in your future. Be sure you write them down. Help your sisters although they will not help you -- because you will enjoy doing it even if you get no return. Learn German, Italian, Dutch and French. You will need them when you are older and its easier to learn them now. Buy a Ferrari Dino GTS. They will quadruple in price very soon, and you will meet two men named Gino and Henri that you will otherwise never know.
Above all, no matter what fretful, rut-digging people advise you, do not put anything off. Carpe Diem is your motto; adhere to it! If you think you can put off travelling until you are 60 and all your bills are paid including your house, be advised that when you are 60 you will be blind in one eye and have heart trouble, and the places you wanted to visit will be dirty, dangerous and inaccessible to someone not in good physical health. Besides which, your careful investments will have gone into the toilet, the value of your house will have dropped to nil and the neighbourhood will have gone bad so you cannot sell it at any price and you do not dare to leave it for long lest the savages loot it and burn it down. Trust your instincts -- do not buy property you cannot bear to abandon. Do not travel with anybody named Melody or Vanessa.
And believe what Daddy advised you: spend your money and your time building memories. Because when you reach the age of 61 and more of your life is behind you than ahead of you, it will be far better to look back on an exciting, fulfilling life than on a pile of bills stamped PAID, and to look forward to life as an adventure you can survive, not a trudge along a rut that looks the same ahead as it looks behind.
You are of sound mind, I would tell my 20 year old self: spend it all -- time, talent and treasure -- while you are alive. You will be much happier than your trudging friends who obey the pinch-mouthed future selves who never had a minute of fun.
And never, ever travel with anybody named Melody or Vanessa.